EA soars on buy rating; China worries hammer Nu Skin

BenEisen

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Shares of Electronic Arts Inc. soared on Friday to lead the S&P 500 after an analyst awarded the stock a buy rating while Nu Skin Enterprises Inc. remained pressured by worries over a regulatory probe in China.

Top Internet IPOs

Electronic Arts
EA, -0.25%
shares surged 12% after analysts at CRT Capital initiated coverage of the stock at a “buy” with a price target of $26. “Our buy rating is not for the faint of heart, as EA continues to have mishaps with game launches, has too few original IP, and has had challenges with console cycles in the past,” Neil Doshi at CRT said in a note. But EA is expected to regain some of its luster with the launch of much anticipated Titanfall in March, he said.

Shares of Nu Skin
NUS, +0.23%
sank for a third day, losing another 6.3%. Chinese regulators are investigating allegations that the distributor of personal care products is operating an illegal pyramid scheme. In a statement, Nu Skin said it has launched its own review and plans to work with Chinese authorities to address any issues.

Gainers

Morgan Stanley
MS, -0.59%
shares were up 4.4% after the investment bank reported its fourth-quarter earnings, which showed strong performance in wealth management, though it was offset by weaker fixed-income trading results. The company’s fourth-quarter profit sank 70%. Despite this, an adjusted per-share profit of 50 cents beat consensus expectations of 45 cents, according to a Thomson Reuters poll of analysts.

American Express Co.
AXP, +0.54%
shares gained 3.6% while its competitor Visa Inc.
V, -0.08%
rose 4.7%. American Express said late Thursday its fourth-quarter earnings jumped to $1.31 billion, or $1.21 a share, from $637 million, or 56 cents a share, a year ago. Excluding expenses, AmEx would have earned $1.25 a share. Revenue increased to $8.55 billion from $8.14 billion a year earlier.

Best Buy Co.
BBY, +0.87%
dropped 9%. The electronics retailer on Thursday reported disappointing holiday sales with total revenue falling to $11.45 billion from $11.75 billion in the year-earlier period. Same-store sales were down 0.8% in the nine weeks ended Jan. 4.

Edwards Lifesciences Corp.
EW, +0.12%
declined 5.7%. Medtronic Inc.
MDT, +0.13%
which recently lost a court fight with Edwards Lifesciences over a patent for a heart valve, said it plans to appeal the jury verdict which awarded Edwards $392.5 million for patent infringement.

Capital One Financial Corp.
COF, +0.39%
shares were down 5.3%. The financial firm late Thursday announced its fourth-quarter profit rose to $859 million, or $1.45 a share, from $843 million, or $1.41 a share, a year ago but revenue slid to $5.54 billion from $5.62 billion.

Tickers to Watch

INTC: Shares of Intel
INTC, +0.83%
slid 2.6%. The chip maker late Thursday said its fourth-quarter profit rose to $2.6 billion, or 51 cents a share, from $2.5 billion, or 48 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue edged up to $13.83 billion from $13.48 billion. However, Intel projected first-quarter revenue to come in at a $12.8 billion, plus or minus $500 million. Analysts surveyed by FactSet were looking for revenue of $12.79 billion.

UPS: United Parcel Service Inc.
UPS, +0.59%
shares fell 0.6%. The shipping company on Friday cut its outlook for 2013 due to an unexpected surge in volume which forced it to deploy more equipment and people. It now expects to report adjusted earnings of $4.57 a share for the year versus $4.65 a share to $4.85 a share earlier forecast.

TWTR: Twitter Inc.
TWTR, -2.30%
climbed 2.7% after Stifel analysts initiated coverage of the social media company with a buy rating and a $75 price target. It follows a report on the news site Re/code that the company is nearing a deal with payments startup Stripe to allow users to make payments directly through the site.

“We believe Twitter is the most powerful, flexible, and disruptive of the social media platforms, giving it significant scarcity value. We believe this value is hard to quantify and does not yet show up in earnings,” Jordan Rohan, an analyst at Stifel, said in a report.

EXPE: Shares of Expedia Inc.
EXPE, +0.47%
advanced 3.2%. The stock’s price target was raised to $85 from $70 at FBR on data indicating growth in domestic hotel and air transactions.

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